Category: Uncategorized Page 136 of 157

I’ve made good progress on my Menger sponge project – finished up unit #300 last night. Still a long way to go before I can even start assembling the final form, but it’s a good start.

Also played a bunch of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit last night. Earned a couple new cars in the game – pretty sweet.

Then I went to bed and the nightmares started. I took notes this morning of what I could remember…

1. Visiting my grandmother at her house. I go into the den/guest bedroom and find it’s flooded with about 4 inches of water that, for some reason, doens’t spill out into the rest of the house. Then I notice a small black worm that suddenly stretches toward me, flares it’s front section, then flaps it like a manta ray and glides through the water toward me as it returns to normal. It’s a leech, it’s on the hunt, and it’s looking for me. Prudently, somewhat girl-y, I jump up on a weight bench and call for help. When help arrives, they see the leech glide under the bed to hide. Rather than waste time trying to capture it, Grandma decides that she doesn’t really need that room and – after getting me out – has the room sealed up forever.

2. Dad has decided he doesn’t have enough space to work on projects and rents several hundred thousand square feet of space in a warehouse. I go to visit him and he’s busy building shelves. He’s already built hundreds of floor to ceiling shelves and the place is a maze of empty wooden shelves. I get lost trying to find the exit and the bathroom.

3. I’m in a cemetary and notice a well cooked beef steak sitting on a plate on top of a gravestone. I get a little closer and realize, somehow, that it’s not beef – it’s human.

4. I’m in a strange bathroom, maybe a hotel – and I’m trying to figure out how to use the facilites with the toilet nearly full of water and the lid partially closed – without making a mess.

Brief intermission as I get up and use my normal bathroom for real.

5. I’m at work and we’re trying to track down a virus that has a graphic interface – we can actually see it eat files like a little blob on the screen. We discover it on one machine – then realize it’s already spread to every machine in the School of Law.

6. I’m playing Need for Speed – but this time I’m actually in the game, behind the wheel of one of the cars. I’m racing the Desert Canyon track against one other car – trying to beat them to qualify for the next track. The other car is all over the road and I can’t get past them. I finally make my move and pull up alongside them – and it’s Paris Hilton talking on her pink cell phone with her dog yapping at my from the passenger side of the car.

Back to reality – this morning I glanced in the mirror and realized that if I let my beard get to long, there’s a huge patch of white/gray hair on one side of my chin. It looks a little odd, but I was running late and didn’t have time to trim it.

So, I grabbed a coke and an apple and headed out the door. Spent far too long scraping off my car, said hello to my neightbor and came to work.

And now it’s time to get back to it…

There was a message on my answering machine yesterday when I got home. It was from – I think – my former room-mate’s oldest son. It was a kind of bland “haven’t talked to you in a while” kind of message – and that was about it. No “purpose” – other than the obvious trying to re-establish communications. There was no phone number left and since I canceled my caller ID – no way to tell the number. And he called at 8:00 in the morning – on a Thursday – when I would be certain to be at work.

So, to sum up:

Random phone call, no apparent purpose, no return number, called when I couldn’t possibly be home.

While I’d like to think this was a friend trying to get back in touch and doing a poor job of it – I’m a little uneasy. Was he calling and didn’t think about me being at work until he was already leaving the message – or was he calling to make sure I wasn’t home?

I’m going to stop my speculation at this point since I have no proof of anything either way.

I guess that’s about it for now… looks like another busy day on the horizon. Back to work…

So, I go out to dinner last night with a friend and though we have requested a non-smoking table – we have to wait just outside the bar area of the resturant. The 5 mintues turned to 10 and the smoke started to bother my eyes and my lungs. Finally, we got seated just outside what I’m guessing could be a small banquet room – as far away as possible from the smoky bar. Which was great. The server came around quickly, drinks were ordered and delivered, and the food came out quickly. I had fish and it was well prepared and tasted good. Turning out to be a nice dinner.

Then a couple gets seated in the banquet area and while I’m pretty sure that whole section was also non-smoking – the guy had a cigerette out before he even got his coat off. Coffee was served to them and she started smoking as well.

Ten feet away – no obstructions. Before too long, my eyes were bothered and so were my lungs. I started to smell it on my clothes and skin.

Never having seen anyone violate the no-smoking rule in a given area, I wasn’t sure of the protocal. Nobody else seemed bothered and their server didn’t say anything to them. Should I approach them? Should I talk to the server or manager? By the time the manager stopped by to ask us how things were – and it was prefunctory question at best – and the server buzzing to and from our table like a hummingbird, well, it was really too late. I was nearly done eating and dessert wasn’t going to be an option.

I guess I’m tired of walking through a haze of smoke to get into a building, of waiting near a smoking section, and of the annoyance in general.

Next time I go to a resturant I’m going to pay more attention to where I’m seated and I’m going to start asking questions and pushing buttons as need be.

That’s it for now – time to get back to work…

I have discovered a small goal for myself – to use an entire tube of chapstick before I lose it. Since the tube is opaque, I have no idea how close I am to my goal. I’m only going to use a “normal” amount since it wouldn’t be a realisitic accomplishment otherwise.

Hey, you gotta start somewhere.

It’s another busy day here at work, so I should get back to it…

Well, it’s been a busy couple of days here at work. Thankfully, I have my Wookie to keep me company. Yeah, it’s a little silly, but darn it – I need a little silly in my life.

I’ve been working on about 4.5 bazillion differnt projects in the past two days – along with updates to a system that take 10 minutes of processing time to complete before I can work on the next one. It’s some kind of system glitch, but it really does take 10 minutes to process – I’ve timed it. Thankfully, I can work on other stuff during that time, so I’m able to keep up with most of my other stuff.

I’ve got some software to demo this afternoon – and a few more things to accomplish before the day gets away from me. So, back to work.

Yesterday, while heading for lunch I encountered…

A woman meandering slowly across a busy street using a “push to (annoy) talk” phone with a hands free headphone. She was slow. She was loud. She was annoying. And, doesn’t using a “push to talk” defeat the purpose of using a hands free? Don’t you have to use your hands to push on the walkie-talkie?

The guy with the surfer dude haircut standing behind me in line to get food was standing way to close to me. I mean way to close. And everytime I would try to move away, he’d hurry and catch up so that he was wearing my coat with me. And incidentally – the surfer dude haircut is only marginally cool if you are actually a surfer. And buddy – the surfing here in Ohio sucks.

A trio of fools was standing and talking – and blocking the entire hallway to the main exit of the building. I had to push my way past them to get out. I should have spilled my drink on them.

In other news… I was watching a movie called Das Experiment last night. I’ve seen it before and it’s a good flick. One thing that did bother me though was that one of the characters was just coming from her father’s funeral. It was remarked that he was 65 and had lead a good life. I’m 33 and for a moment – the weight of all those past and future years crashed into me. Not entirely sure I’m looking forward to it. Feels more like something to be endured. Which, I’ll be the first to admit, is not the most healthy of emotional states. Something I need to ponder, I guess.

Which I can do while I’m working on my next origami project – the Menger Sponge. Level 2 – I think. You can do a search on the web for them – my version will take 768 pieces of paper – I think. I may have done the math wrong.

If I go full sized paper – I’ll need to buy 2 reams of paper. If I cut the paper into smaller pieces, it will 192 full sheets. At full size, I estimate the final dimentions to be around 27 inches cubed. Which is big.

The challange – which I’ve faced before – is not in building the units, but in putting them together. I’ll most likely need to glue them – and that means no mistakes can be made in the whole process. A little daunting.

Well, I’ve got my canned goods to pay my parking fines (one can be waived per semester with a donation to their food drive) and a pile of work to do. So, better get back to work…

It’s been a few days since I blogged – got a bit of catching up to do. The birthday visit went well, I think everyone had fun. My family got in a little later than they expected so we stayed up and talked and hung out. I slept on the bench that I built – which was not quite as uncomfortable as I had thought it would be. We did a lot of running around on Saturday and then had cupcakes and presents. I got a couple of CD’s and some shelves – which we put together. We also made some paper before they left – I think Dad got some serious ideas for projects.

As an extra special birthday present from the county – I also had to go get my registration for my car renewed. The BMV I go to is quick and effecient – with reasonably friend staff. However, the fee for the renewed registration was $49.50
And for that I got a piece of paper and a sticker. Great. At least the echeck was free this year…

Earlier this week I had to come back on campus in the evening – in a differnt car than I’m normally in. So, I stuck my parking pass in that car and promptly forgot it. When I got out of work – parking ticket and $25 fine.

Now, I’m an employee here and I still have to pay to park on campus – a policy I’ve never been happy about since it was instituted. On the parking permit application, I had to put my license plate number and on the ticket they listed that too. So, why is there not a connection between the two bits of data?

I think I can get out of it – by donating canned goods to the parking services food drive.

Still, it’s annoying.

And so is the cough I’ve got this morning. I almost wish I would get “all the way” sick so that I could stay home and people would be nice to me. Instead, a low level cold the whole winter. Great.

I’ve got a huge-ass and a weird-ass project at work. I’m pretty sure it’s at least 12% beyond my current skill level. Should be fun – for values of “fun” that include mental anguish and horror.

Well, I guess it’s time to get back to work…

Chaos is easy – order takes work. Not sure if I made up that simplified description of the forces of entropy, but I’m going to claim it as my own. My parents and my sister are coming this evening for a delayed birthday visit – and are spending the night. This is the first time they’ve been able to do so – since I really haven’t had room for them before.

And living by myself, I tend to let things slide. Hey, I’m a guy, it happens. So, the past few days have been spent cleaning. I still need to vaccume, but that’s about it. The biggest part of the work has been in putting things away. A lot of picking up things in one room and taking them to another – then picking things up there and moving them again. It’s a little tiring.

I also beat the second xmen game on the PS2 (on easy mode, so sue me). I’ve started a new game on Normal mode and unlocked a few characters. To really get the most of it, you’ve got to explore ever square inch of every area. There’s a map, fortuantly, but no way to see the whole thing – even after you’ve visited an area. I get lost easily – which is true in the game and in real life.

I’ll wrap up this entry with an odd dream. I was in a parking lot, trying to get to my car, when I noticed a car that was driving eratically. The driver was on the right side of the car with an oversized steering wheel. Not bigger around, but nearly as thick as a tire. The passenage was asleep through these manuvers – though from the damge to the side of the car it was clear that it had been in numerous accidents. The driver tried to run into me several times, but I always managed to get out of the way. Finally, as I got near my car, the driver jettisoned the main body of the car and was now driving essentailly a long cylinder on wheels. It headed right for me, trying to pin me and crush me against my car. Reasoning that the barrel car was much lighter, I stepped forward and held out my foot as though I was going to kick the car – and stopped it. Then I stepped forward again and tipped the car up on it’s nose. The driver was trapped and furious – but I ignored him. I left my car and started to walk away when I woke up.

It’s too bad I’m not a better artist – I think I could make some of these dreams into a comic book or graphic novel.

And that’s it for now. Time to get back to work…

I almost called in sick today. Last night I has stomach cramps and a fairly intensive time in the bathroom. And no, I wasn’t cleaning. Not sure if it was something I ate or just the latest in my winter long battle with a cold. The cold keeps coming up with new symptoms and I keep enduring them. It seems to have allied with my headaches – and last night was a tag team rumble.

But, I’m marginally better today and I’ve got a meeting – so, I braved the cold and snow to come to work. Can’t really say I’m happy to be here, but I’m getting stuff done. Answered some emails – tracked down a problem with one of the systems. And when I say “tracked down” – I mean that I wandered around looking for the best candidate to fix it. The only person I could find was, ironically, the very person who could make repairs. And when I say repairs, I mean they could reboot the machine. So, problem solved.

I went to the student union yesterday for lunch on the first day of classes for the semester. Normally, something to avoid – but I went for a late lunch and the crowds weren’t bad. There were a lot of people there and most seemed to be wandering around. Some of that is “new students” – a group that is, collectively, always slightly lost. And it’s to be expected – they’re new.

But there was also a group that – in some difficult to define way – was moving randomly, but with purpose. It was like they knew where they were going, but they didn’t actually care about arriving there. There was also a large contingent of people standing just inside the main doors – talking on their cell phones. It was raining, so I’m guessing they were trying to arrange a ride. But, there were so many of them that they were actually blocking the doors so that the damp people – me included – had difficulty getting in the building.

Which gets me to my point – if I can actully focus long enough to come up with one.

Several years ago, there was a version of the Transformers on tv called Beast Machines. For those readers that live under a rock – Transformers are robots/toys that change into cars or planes or something. In this case, the something was animals – except for some reason they had trouble turning back into robots. So, the leader of the group with a name so ridulous that I’m not going to mention it – trains the transformers with him to, well, transform, again.

The series stuck in my head due to one line the leader said,

“Focus on the transformation at hand”

Now, clearly this is a play on the phrase “Focus on the task at hand”. By saying transformation – the focus is not on the present, but on the transition from present to future. The “process” of change becomes the important part.

Now how does this apply to me being annoyed? Some of the people I encounted were focused only on their own small slice of the present. They weren’t seeing the rest of their enviroment – or the consequences of their actions. Instead of moving through a sea of people, adjusting to their ebbs and flows – I had to plow through a log-jam.

And it made me cranky.

So, that’s it for now… back to work

I’m at a time in my life where birthday’s don’t really phase me much – hell, I’ve already got the gray hair and the balding spot on the back of my head which is not a topic for discussion. So, birthdays are not a big deal – except for one thing.

I think that birthday’s are a time for family and friends – not a bunch of loud strangers bellowing out a brutalized version of happy (insert resturant name here) birthday with poorly organized hand clapping.

So, if you’re out to dinner with me at any time around my birthday – whatever you do, don’t have all the servers come over and sing for me. I’m not going to like it.

With this in mind – and a warning to those having dinner with me – we went out to dinner for my birthday to Macaroni Grill. The food is always good and the bread is… oh, the bread is wonderful. I polished off 1.5 loaves all by myself.

Our server came around toward the end of the meal – once we had totally gorged ourselves – chided my lightly since I didn’t finish my asparagas (though I acutally enjoy it and would have eaten all of them first except that they tasted like charcoal and lighter fluid. I would have complained, but I just wanted to leave and go home and digest).

She also asked if we wanted dessert – I shook my head no and so did my friend who shall remain nameless (the fate of the guilty). Friend also then added – clearly without thinking – “No, we’ve got cake…” – they pointed at me – “waiting at hom…”

They servers eyes – already wide enough to suggest insanity under normal circumstances – widened even further. My guilty friend – realizing the terrible and potentially dangerous mistake they had made – grabbed the server and dragged her down into the booth. They spent the next few minutes doing everything possible to convince the server not to sing – even begging her to forget that she had heard anything.

For my part – I was resigned to my vocal fate. The food – except for the asparagas – was good and I was stuffed. And there was cake to be considered later. So, I wasn’t going to unleash any of my dark and terrible wrath.

Meanwhile, a compromise was reached. The server would bring cake, with a lit candle, but she swore that no one would be singing. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I had already decided it was out of our hands. She left and came back withe promised chocolate cake, one lit candle, and no singing.

She was tipped well.

Later,we discoved that we had been charged $.01 for the cake – and that it didn’t taste very good.

Still, overall – a good birthday dinner. And now it’s time to get…

Wait, nearly forgot. I got a papermaking kit for christmas and finally got ahold of a blender – so, yesterday I made about 10 sheets of paper with the kit. Worked pretty well – only had one go “bad”. I’ll make more for sure and I’m considering taking some pictures – but I’m pretty sure it’ll just look like a piece of paper. Which, by itself, is not really that cool.

Okay, now I’m done… back to work…